#1288: Hard Rock Mine by Dorsey Burnette
Peak Month: March 1961
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
WX DISC-overy of the Week ~ February 11, 1961
YouTube.com: “Hard Rock Mine”
Dorsey Burnette was born in 1932 in Memphis, Tennessee. He played bass in his younger brother Johnny Burnette’s rockabilly Rock ‘n Roll Trio. Dorsey became a solo artist and had a few minor hits in the late 1950s and early 1960s. His biggest hit was in 1960 with “Tall Oak Tree” that peaked in the Top 30 in the USA and #15 in Vancouver. Dorsey Burnette is best known for writing over 350 songs. His most well known songs were recorded by teen idol, Ricky Nelson. When he was six his dad bought him a Gene Autry guitar, along with one for his younger brother, Johnny. Dorsey had a temper and was on a path to becoming what was then called a juvenile delinquent. He put his temper to better use competing as a Golden Gloves boxer. He met another boxer when he was 17 years old at the 1949 championship named Paul Burlison. They discovered a mutual interest in music. However, Burlison was inducted into the US Army in 1951. Dorsey and his brother began appearing on Memphis radio stations and playing gigs for beer money, kicks and girls.
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#1293: Vickie Lee by The Untouchables
Peak Month: October 1960
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Vickie Lee”
Sheridan “Rip” Spencer was a student at Jordan High School in Los Angeles. His cousin, Brice Coefield, went to school at L.A. High. The cousins sang together and they chose to form a doo-wop group called the Sabers. In the fall of 1955 they had an audition with Cal-West Records. Rip was the second tenor, Brice was baritone and the bass singer was Walter Carter. Their recording, “Always Forever”, was a song Rip had written and it didn’t have a b-side. When they went home they got a classmate of Brice’s named Billy Hamlin Spicer to be the first tenor. The record failed to chart and the Sabers changed their name to the Chavelles.
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#1299: Circle Game by Buffy Sainte-Marie
Peak Month: October 1970
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Circle Game”
Lyrics: “Circle Game”
In 1941 Beverley Jean Santamaria was born in Stoneham, Massachusetts. Her father was Italian and her mother was English. The family changed their surname after WWII to “Sainte-Marie” due to anti-Italian sentiment stemming from the war. Buffy studied teaching and Asian philosophy at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in the late ’50s. From the 1963 she told the Vancouver Sun she was born on the Piapot Cree Reserve in southwestern Saskatchewan and was “a Cree Indian.” A CBC investigation in 2023 discovered she was not born in Canada.
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#1351: She’s Boss by The Dimensions
Peak Month: June 1966
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “She’s Boss”
In 1966 things were becoming “boss.” The record survey on CKLG Radio 73, “You’re Information Station,” bid farewell to its last Silver Dollar Survey on September 10, 1966. The following week ‘LG began promoting its survey on September 17th as the Boss 40. As a slang adjective, “boss” meant excellent, first-rate, superlative. It became a fashionable word among teenagers in America and spread to the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and in ex-pat English-speaking communities around the world. Originally, boss was an English derivative from the Dutch word baas, meaning master or overseer. As far back as the 1620s baas was the standard title of a Dutch ship’s captain.
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#1318: A Rose and A Thorn by Andy Rose
Peak Month: November 1960
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “A Rose And A Thorn”
In 2011 there was a 31-track volume from Cat King Kole Records covering recordings by Andy Rose. He was a Paul Anka-like vocalist whose lone claim to fame was “Just Young”, a song that peaked at #69 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1958. A version of “Just Young” by Paul Anka charted at #80 during the same month. This was Andy’s only record to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. On the Cashbox Magazine charts “Just Young” listed both Andy Rose and Paul Anka’s recorded versions together and the song climbed to #28. In Vancouver the song peaked at #16 on CKWX and Andy Rose had some local fans. The B-side of “Just Young” was a rockabilly tune called “Love-A-Lov-A-Love” with a clear influence from the phrasing in Buddy Holly’s songs. However, Andy Rose was born Andrew Gattuso in Brooklyn, New York. His mother was an Italian immigrant from Sicily. Andy Rose has only one child a daughter. Andy had two brothers, Roger and Sal, and one sister.
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#1321: Try Me by Margie Rayburn
Peak Month: January 1961
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Music Vendor ~ #107
YouTube.com: “Try Me”
In 1924, Marjorie Helen Orwig was born in the San Joaquin Valley in the central California town of Madera. As a recording artist and performer, she was known as Margie Rayburn. While still in her late teens, during World War II, she began singing with big bands and in that capacity entertained American soldiers. At the end of the war she was hired as a featured vocalist with Ray Anthony’s Orchestra. Anthony had been part of the Glenn Miller band until he was drafted to serve in the US Navy in 1942, and at the end of the war formed his own band. Margie Rayburn went on tour with Gene Autry and got gigs at several nightclubs in San Francisco.
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#1322: The Piano Boy by Joanie Sommers
Peak Month: July 1961
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “The Piano Boy”
Lyrics: “The Piano Boy”
Joan Drost was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1941. She sang in church choirs from the age of ten. After moving to Venice, California, she got a break to sing at the Deauville Country Club north of the Topanga State Park in greater Los Angeles. Tommy Oliver was the band leader at the country club and he subsequently got her to record a demo for Warner Brothers in 1959. She made her club debut as Joanie Sommers at the prestigious Ye Little Club in Beverly Hills when she was 18. Sommers got a minor role dancing and singing with Ed Byrnes in the TV show 77 Sunset Strip. She was in a duet with Byrnes in “Kookie’s Love Song” in a 1959 episode of the show.
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#1326: Teen Prayer by The Velveteens
Peak Month: August 1961
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Teen Prayer”
“Teen Prayer” was a big local hit for a girls doo-wop group from Springfield, Massachusetts, called the Velveteens. In May 1961 it was #1 for three weeks in Springfield, Massachusetts, on WHYN and one week on WSPR (also in Springfield).
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#1336: Dream Boy by Annette
Peak Month: February 1961
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 #87
YouTube.com: “Dream Boy”
Lyrics: “Dream Boy”
On July 17, 1955 Annette Funicello made her television debut during the live broadcast of Disneyland’s opening day ceremonies. She participated in a song and dance routine promoting the upcoming debut of Walt Disney’s new television show, The Mickey Mouse Club. Following the shows premier on Monday, October 3, 1955, The Mickey Mouse Club became an immediate hit. Its army of small, amateur mouse-eared stars took America by storm. It wasn’t long before the young audience of boys and girls developed a particular interest in a little dark haired girl named Annette. Just as she had appealed to Walt Disney himself, when he discovered her at a dance recital, Annette emerged as a favorite among many children across the USA, launching her into television stardom. As a result she appeared on numerous magazine covers and a variety of Disney branded merchandise.
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#1353: Time by Jerry Jackson
Peak Month: June 1961
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Time”
Lyrics: “Time”
Jerry was born in the Northeastern USA and raised in a large, talented family consisting of six sisters and six brothers. His dad was a preacher who traveled extensively throughout the southern states in the USA. His mother, a missionary, provided excellent mentoring to their children at home. They had migrated from the southern USA with their first three children several years before Jerry was born. They were all raised under strict biblical principles.Continue reading →
